Seiken Densetsu 3 is my favorite, too. The Tales series is a close second - it’s especially fun when I can round up three other players to adventure with me! The co-op game I’ve spent the most time with is Terraria.

(Edit: Forgot Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. The way it integrated the GBA was pretty neat.)

It’s a top ten list, so I took it seriously and spent some time deliberating over it. I almost exclusively play single player or co-op games these days (with the exception of CS:GO), so this list is based on the games I’ve spent the most time on and had the most fun with.

Portal 2
I’ve played almost 200 hours of Portal 2 on Steam, and that’s because of the community test chambers. The game itself is already like no other, and whilst the six co-op missions are pretty fun it’s the levels made by community members that give the game an unrivaled longevity.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
I played this to death when it first game out, and a couple of times since. At the time it was unique, and even better for the fact that over Xbox Live the enemy could hear when you used your mic to communicate with your team mate. This lead to having to be silent when in close proximity, and many tense moments of no communication…

Saints Row 2
Mayhem. That’s the only word to describe SR2’s co-op. You can get up to enough carnage on your own, but the game allows you to add a second player which brings with it a surprising layer of team work and strategy. It’s also brilliantly fun to pilot helicopters together.

Gears of War 2
The co-op in Gears was always a special, narrative-focused experience, but Gears 2 expands upon that with the ability to face off against the AI in horde mode. I spent many a night with friends building a fort in a corner of a map, trying to hold off the waves of enemies…

Halo 3
I surprised myself by putting a Halo title so far down the list, but finally being able to play Halo online was a gratifying experience. It’s easily still one of the funnest games to just sit down and play, simple to pick up and understand and even better played on Legendary together.

Far Cry 4
There’s nothing uniquely special about Far Cry 4, other than it does pretty much everything right. It has what I think is the best sandbox gunplay in gaming, and is set in such a beautiful landscape with plenty of things to do. The only downside here is that campaign isn’t co-op.

Gears of War
What made the first Gears special is just how dark and suffocating most of the game was. Even in single player you’re still playing with an AI companion, but when in co-op you experience the journey with another person and that makes it all the more visceral and meaningful.

Halo: Combat Evolved
This game represents a throwback for me, back to when you’d have friends come over to play the campaign with you. It was the first proper campaign co-op game that I played, and so many of my earliest memories of co-op were forged with Halo. Every session would end in betrayal after betrayal…

Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers
A game I played relatively recently, and not one without it’s faults, but one that is different to most of the games on this list in that it actually requires you to use team work to progress. You have to cover each other, flank around the enemy to surprise them etc. It’s also super hard.

Sonic 2
I feel that Sonic games barely count as co-op, but this was my very first co-op game. My sister and I would play it, arguing over who got to be Sonic, because we always ended up sacrificing Tails here and there almost ritualistically (all in the name of progress, you understand).

They are solid Halo games. ODST introduces Firefight mode, a survival mode which can be played co-op. Quite fun. Reach allows you to play the campaign with 4 players online, plus it introduces some new abilities such as the jet pack which add variety, but removes other abilities like dual wielding.

If you like Halo co-op then there’s no reason not to try them, they’re still fun. They’re no better or worse in co-op than in single player though, which perhaps can’t be said for the originals (which seemed to have something special added in co-op).

Hey remember when we did a little twota Halo 2 tournament back in the day? We need to do something like that again someday. Not necesserilly with Halo 2 (maybe Master Chief Collection? i don’t own it tho) but just some fun excuse to shoot each other and hang out. I have fun memories of owning everyone’sasses under the Paet monicker.

How many people here own an Xbox One? Less than the number who owned an original Xbox I’m guessing. Maybe we could get the old version of Halo 2 for PC working if most people have a Windows machine that can run it.

If enough people have Xbox 360s and Halo 3 that could be a good alternative…

Not anymore for me, I sold all three Xboxes, although perhaps others have still held onto theirs. Times have changed; while it’s understandable that the original Xbox was popular around here, not everyone will have stuck with the Xbox brand after Orta’s release.